Andrea Appiani

Anonymous sale, Coutau-Bégarie, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23 May 2014, lot 176.

Napoléon, l'Empereur sous la verrière du Grand Palais : La collection Pierre-Jean Chalençon, cat. exh. Grand Palais, Paris 2018, pp. 78-79.

The traditional title of this magnificent sheet, Napoleon and the Four Cardinal Virtues, seems unconvincing since there are ten young women approaching Napoleon, who is dressed as a Roman Emperor. The work is more likely to show the nine Muses being led to the Emperor by Peace, who holds an olive branch, a subject that symbolizes the arts flourishing under Napoleon’s pacifying influence.

This could be a design for the decoration of the Hall of the Caryatids in the Palazzo Reale in Milan, begun in 1803 and completed in 1807. This consisted of thirty-five episodes from the Glories of Napoleon, mainly battle scenes but also some allegories. The Palazzo Reale was badly damaged in the Second World War and the decoration in the Hall of the Caryatids was unfortunately destroyed (see lot 30).